Beyond stupid.
I'm shocked.
I’ve read that due to cheap solar panels (over-produced by China) electricity from large-scale Solar power may be cheaper than coal or gas. The problem is scalability - the footprint is of course huge - and as such will never become a large percentage of an electrical system.
The contracts to purchase the electricity from the constantly broken plant will be voided. Bloomberg Businessweek claims that Crescent Dunes was obsoleted by technological advances in the form of photovoltaic based solar plants. That is nonsense and misses the whole point of the Crescent Dunes project. It also misses the reality that all utility-scale solar is a failure — not marginal, not growing into being practical, but a total and complete failure.
...
From what I’ve read, utility scale thin film solar and onshore wind are now economical and can compete without subsidies.
https://www.lazard.com/media/451086/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-130-vf.pdf
This professor is a good resource for all things power and energy. I recommend that you subscribe to him.
“Energy Stats: Then and Now, Here and There”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Bi2LpLoK8&feature=youtu.be
He also talks at length about nuclear power, has a video on fracking...
But the fact that a facility in Nevada has failed suggests that I could be wrong.
You’re right.
Wind and solar will always be extremely wasteful in terms of land use. There are probably cases where that doesn’t matter, but it is nonetheless so. They take up hundreds or thousands of acres where on a postage stamp you can produce several times the energy. In this case, 100 MW projected (and never attained) on 300 acres, and for comparison a plant I’m familiar with produces 280 on 10 acres. Wind farms, of course, go on for thousands of acres, chopping up birds as they go.
Another solar plant I’m familiar with produces 250 MW on 2000 acres of a 4000 acre site. They are limited to half the acreage so that wildlife can pass through. Again, 250 on several thousand acres versus 280 on 10.
It sort of looks “cool” and futuristic; however, the reality is that taxpayers were ripped off supporting the boondoggle. This being ripped off by these frauds is getting old.
I’m still accepting new investors in my high-tech, super-green startup venture. It’s called SunWindDeliveranceYay!
SuWinDelYa, get in now!
It’s a Billion Dollar Air Fryer.
How much in campaign contributions was received and to who ?
Did I ping you to this one ?